Northern Spirit House Podcast

About Northern Spirit House Podcast

Opening Perception to the Living World hagstonepodcast.substack.com (https://hagstonepodcast.substack.com/s/hagstone-podcast?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Hagstone Podcast

Category

society & culture · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

18 Apr 2024

Latest episode

13 Mar 2026

Latest episodes

29 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   13 Mar 2026

   The Weird Rediscovery of the Extraordinary

   In this month’s episode of The Hagstone, Chaise Levy sits down with Dutch-based oral storyteller Simon Hodges, known as Lindenbauer, to wander the marshlands between land and fairy, cultivation and wildness, memory and responsibility. Beginning in the drowned farmlands of the Biesbosch, a tidal landscape shaped by flood, war, and beaver teeth, the conversation opens into a deeper inquiry. What happens when we slow down enough to perceive the intelligence of place? Drawing on lived encounters, landscape history, William Blake, David Abram, and the discipline of oral tradition, they explore the subtle threshold where land encounter becomes fairy encounter. The episode moves from childhood visions and ash tree vigils to hazel charms and dragon weather, asking what it means to enter into relationship with something more than human, and what happens when we fail to uphold that relationship. Throughout, storytelling emerges not as performance but as practice, a way of returning to the same place until it begins to speak through you. The teller becomes less a personality and more a threshold, someone willing to falter, to lose control, and to allow truth to move through the room. From Shakespearean stages to marsh edges, from cultivated Dutch peatlands to California’s flood prone plains, we trace how perception shifts when language becomes an organ of attention. Ultimately, the conversation gestures toward a quiet but demanding reorientation. Enchantment is not spectacle. Fairy is not novelty. Relationship requires responsibility. Story, carried mouth to mouth across centuries, may be one of the last bridges where the more than human world still waits for us to listen. New Theme Music: Taliesin, written and performed on Tenor Guitar and Mandolin by Chaise Levy Please consider leaving a rating and review on your favorite podcasting platform! For more episodes follow us at hagstonepodcast.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hagstonepodcast.substack.com (https://hagstonepodcast.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

2. 

   19 Feb 2026

   All We Ever Really Have Is Story

   In this month’s episode of The Hagstone, Chaise Levy sits down with Scott Richardson-Read to trace the living force of story shapes nations, roots itself in land, and moves through communities as something more than metaphor. Beginning with the claim that “all we ever really have is story,” the conversation travels from Scottish political identity to digital worlds, from local hillsides to role-playing tables, asking what holds people together when institutions falter. Drawing on folklore, landscape memory, online gaming culture, and oral storytelling practice, they explore story as a form of belonging. We track how shared imaginative space also for identity to be tested, inhabited, and transformed. The episode considers how a wide variety of otherworlds can function as contemporary mythic terrain, how communal storytelling generates a kind of “group body,” and how the teller becomes less an author than a mouthpiece for something moving through the room. Ultimately, the conversation gestures toward a radical reorientation: imagination is not escape, but participation. Story is not distraction, but ground. What would it mean to recognize narrative not as illusion, but as the medium through which reality becomes livable, contested, and enchanted? New Theme Music: Taliesin, written and performed on Tenor Guitar and Mandolin by Chaise Levy Scott Richardson-Read is a working-class writer, folklorist, and alternative cultural historian with a deep connection to Scotland’s folk heritage. As the creator of Cailleach’s Herbarium, a platform dedicated to reviving and preserving Scottish folk traditions, Scott has spent years researching and sharing the stories, practices, and beliefs that define the working-class and animistic roots of Scottish culture. His work reflects a blend of deep archival exploration, oral history, and personal experience in the landscapes of Scotland. With a background steeped in human rights, ecology, activism, and traditions, Scott’s writing bridges the past and present, offering fresh insights into the enduring significance of folk belief. Through his decades-long journey, he continues to advocate for the preservation of Scotland’s sacred sites and cultural heritage. When not writing, Scott is often found exploring Scotland’s wild spaces, old libraries, and archives, drinking tea with his cats, or engaging with the vibrant communities keeping traditions alive. You can find Scott’s work on his website Cailleachs Herbarium (http://cailleachsherbarium.com) or in his incredible 2025 book Mill Dust and Dreaming Bread: Exploring Scottish Folk Belief and Folk Magic. (https://rosariumblends.com/products/mill-dust-and-dreaming-bread/?srsltid=AfmBOoqc2XT_C-T1juTszkpZHZeB5HWwGX4sDPntnDzDpE04rTzk1Fsa) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit northernspirithouse.substack.com (https://northernspirithouse.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hagstonepodcast.substack.com (https://hagstonepodcast.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

3. 

   20 Jan 2026

   The Sublime Dread of Faery: A Faerie Apologetics with Chad Andro

   In this months episode of The Hagstone, Chaise Levy sits down with Chad Andro of Radical Elphame to explore what Chad calls fairy apologetics, a reexamination of fairy lore that pushes back against fear-based, extractive, and overly dualistic approaches to the Otherworld. Drawing from folklore, Romantic poetry, animist philosophy, entheogenic experience, and personal practice, the conversation challenges the modern tendency to demonize or sentimentalize fairies, arguing instead for a relational and ecological understanding rooted in openness and transformation. Together, they explore the collapse of strict boundaries between this world and the Otherworld, critique capitalist and colonial mindsets that seek to control spiritual experience, and trace how Romantic figures such as William Blake preserved a vision of fairy as a force of fullness that holds joy and terror, innocence and experience, creation and destruction in dynamic balance. The episode ultimately asks what it would mean culturally and spiritually to re-engage fairy not as danger or fantasy, but as a living mode of relationship with the animate world. Connect with Chad Andro Instagram: @radicalelphameSubstack: Chad Andro (https://substack.com/profile/143370757-chad-andro) Podcast: Radical Elphame, available wherever you listen New Theme Music: Taliesin written and performed on Tenor Guitar and Mandolin by Chaise Levy This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit northernspirithouse.substack.com/subscribe (https://northernspirithouse.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)

Who has been a guest on Northern Spirit House Podcast

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Rose Aurora
• Ulrika Jäger
• Johannes Gårdbäck

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

6 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 18 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

23

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

32

Contact Northern Spirit House Podcast

Guest appearances

Does not typically book guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

Questions about Northern Spirit House Podcast